Creative insights come with a rush sometimes, but slowly is the usual route. The whipsaw feature of Authoritarianism is one of those insights.
Perhaps many of us are aware of it at some level, but never codified it with words. We have talked around it for quite some time on this site, without thinking how all three features of Authoritarianism act like a three-way whipsaw.

How does this formulation strike you? Authoritarianism features three traits according to our analysis of Altemeyer's factor analysis of his data.

Aggression, which may be thought of as our animal nature, at least many animals exhibit aggression--the carnivores in particular.

Obedience, which may be thought of as more or less good sense where a stable society requires a strong dose of individual obedience. This is only good sense for logical minds.

Conventionalism, which may be thought of as birds of a feather flock together, or a basic herding instinct. Or it might be thought of as our conscience, our ability to empathize with others, do right by our families, friends and neighbors.

Now comes an obvious insight. The highlighted word pairs in the listings above have a further meaning.

Authoritarian

Natural Instincts

Freud

Aggression

Dominance

Id

Obedience

Cooperative Hierarchy and Logic

Ego

Conventionalism

Parenting And Altruism

Super Ego

Although Freud may be out of date, his basic contribution to understanding the human psyche was not only right, but now appears to reflect our basic instincts inherited from jungle/savanna times. At least this coherency adds consilience to the causes of human of violence. Add to that the results of Zimbardo's Prison Experiment that foretold Abu Ghraib, and the case becomes tight indeed. For more on how this model fits modern times, see Five Pillars. Milgram and Altemeyer add to the picture. For its most extreme dimension see Stout, Babiak and Hare and Frank.

From Wikipedia:

The Id is responsible for our basic drives such as food, sex, and aggressive impulses. It is amoral and egocentric, ruled by the pleasure-pain principle; it is without a sense of time; completely illogical; primarily sexual; infantile in its emotional development; will not take 'no' for an answer. Social behavior like this is sociopathic.

The Ego is the mediator between the id and the superego; trying to ensure that the needs of both the id and the superego are met. It is said to operate on a reality principle, meaning it deals with the id and the superego; allowing them to express their desires, drives and morals in realistic and socially appropriate ways. It is said that the ego stands for reason and caution, developing with age. Traits for cooperation operate this way. The diplomat made-simple looks for ways to generate non-partisanship and cooperation.

The Super-Ego acts as the conscience, maintaining our sense of morality and the prohibition of taboos. This is where parenting children to be peaceful people comes in.

The mosaic that is humanity seems to clarify with this piece of hard-won insight. Nature, unchecked, begets
Sociopathic violence with
Altemeyer tying Freud's construct of the psyche into our genetic heritage. Nature also begets nurture and therein lies
Hope, along with the conventionalism that bedevils conventional solutions to violence. To be sure, this simplification is just that, but it does have an advantage. It keeps our thinking out of the weeds and enables us to move on in search of principles one can use. Humans are not infinitely variable; we do indeed fall into classes of behavior that are not clean cut. This goes with the turf of social science, even at its best.

If the fit doesn't seem perfect, maybe it isn't, for at least two reasons: 1) our language is limited by the perspectives from which it arose. A psychologist may use one set of terms for behaviors s/he sees while a geneticist will select quite another set related more to behavioral origins than to their expressions. 2) Most of us have hang-ups and all hang-ups have denial in common. So our usual first impulse is to disbelieve. And that will be the end of it if we are not self-aware. But for those who have already explored the beauty of the inner self, this construction might seem to be mere common sense.

If not, there may be a problem we all need to hear about. A comment box for dialogue is provided below.

Comments

An off-line comment by one of our friends:

Charles Sanders Peirce was my first and foremost mentor in learning how to think independently while, also, learning to identify 'authoritarian' approaches and, esp., in terms of consequences expressed as 'energy' and how that 'energy' affects and negatively impacts relationships. (I've found also that Peirce was an early pioneer of the field of Psychology as a behavioral science.)

Be careful not to confound aggression with the specific variant of 'authoritarian aggression'. There are many reasons for aggression and many forms of its expression. Authoritarian aggression comes from a unique, underlying cognitive and motivational set of factors: 1) submission to an authority as the right way of living is known by authority; 2) message: an authority who endorses and encourages followers to "get them" vs. a "turn the other cheek" message; 3) polarity in thinking: a dichotomous view of the world separating people into "we" the chosen and "them" the damned; 4) fear of danger and social upheaval, etc.. Freud plays a significant role but I'm really not sure that it is in the way the Id/Ego/Super Ego are connected here.

I've quoted the full context of your quote of my comment for background purposes.

Harry asserted:

>I would like to become more engaged with folks having some of the same concerns I do. To that end, I joined this group. Altemeyer is one of my heroes. I see authoritarians much as Adorno, Milgram, Zimbardo and Altemeyer see them. Altemeyer provided a much needed simplification of the earlier constructs, reducing 6-8 traits to just three independent ones. But that realization is still along way from home.

Connie empathized:

I am familiar with Milgram and Altemeyer. Though, even my knowledge of their work is limited. Your background in this field will benefit our conversation with insights that draw connections between fields of study. Charles Sanders Peirce was my first and foremost mentor in learning how to think independently while, also, learning to identify 'authoritarian' approaches and, esp., in terms of consequences expressed as 'energy' and how that 'energy' affects and negatively impacts relationships. (I've found also that Peirce was an early pioneer of the field of Psychology as a behavioral science.)

Posted by RoadToPeace on Friday, November 09, 2007 at 12:17:31

Harry asked:

>Could you give us an anecdote how that energy works out in fact?

In fact, that 'energy' is felt as 'emotion'.

It may come as a surprise to some but, nonetheless, the Universe is not comprised of solid matter; rather, matter, itself, is comprised of bits of information; and, at a quantum level, 'feelings' are the primordial ingredients of matter... and, in this context, it is also essential to grasp that these primordial 'feelings' precede the existence of a 'feeler' or a 'knower' who 'feels' them. (This coming from the works of Henry Stapp, a quantum physicist at Lawrence-Berkeley Laboratory. Admittedly, he's something of a lone star in his opinion.)

I'll offer the above as a contextual framework from which to begin and see if you want to continue this as a dialogue.

stevedge wrote:
"Freud plays a significant role but I'm really not sure that it is in the way the Id/Ego/Super Ego are connected here."

Freud is certainly out of date in many ways. I used his basic construct for starters. But I am not sure where to go from there. There are different schools of psychology with great overlap among them--different views of, and terms for, a given behavior or syndrome. But I am not sure that any yet provide clean answers to the authoritarian in any scientific sense. That may have to await more neurological research that is just now beginning to gather steam with the first mega-analysis reported.

The practical matter remains: how to deal with the extreme authoritarians, sociopaths/psychopaths in protecting ourselves. So we have every motive to study them until we know them well, and their self-preservation requires that we do not learn about them.

Stevedge wrote:
"Be careful not to confound aggression with the specific variant of 'authoritarian aggression'. There are many reasons for aggression and many forms of its expression."

Good point. Authoritarian aggression is a subset of aggression and does need amplification in its own right.

Stevedge wrote: "2) message: an authority who endorses and encourages followers to "get them" vs. a "turn the other cheek" message; 3) polarity in thinking: a dichotomous view of the world separating people into "we" the chosen and "them" the damned;"

These both seem to me to be the either/or -- black/white view that is a hall mark of authoritarian thiking.

Can you help me distinguish?

Fear is certainly at the root of our hang-ups (defense mechanisms). So does that make authoritarianism a hang-up?

In reference to a question about "how that 'energy' affects and negatively impacts relationships." Connie amplified: "In fact, that 'energy' is felt as 'emotion'."

AHA! Most fundamentally it can be nothing else. :)

What can we make of that fact?

Electrical impulses can only follow neurological pathways. Must we await research or can we as a society find a defense against extreme authoritarianism. I use 'extreme' to differentiate the small fraction of the truly dangerous ones. Most doctors, lawyers, accountants, pilots, surveyors, engineers, etc are mild authoritarians and very valuable for their tendency toward precision.

Connie wrote:
"...at a quantum level, 'feelings' are the primordial ingredients of matter... and, in this context, it is also essential to grasp that these primordial 'feelings' precede the existence of a 'feeler' or a 'knower' who 'feels' them."

I understand that energy can flow along neuro-pathways and create recognizable patterns, memory, and cognition in a qualitative sense. And yes the potential was there when the first evolving organism gained motion and sensing ability.

However, there may be something more here. But my intuition stops there. Any thoughts?